[HN Gopher] Berlin, a divided city. The events of 60 years ago
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Berlin, a divided city. The events of 60 years ago
Author : samizdis
Score : 87 points
Date : 2021-08-13 09:27 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| silvio wrote:
| On the topic of a city divided in two, I highly recommend the
| novel 'The City & The City' by China Mieville. It's an excelllent
| detective thriller that reminds you that the strongest and
| tallest walls are always in our minds.
| zwieback wrote:
| Berlin had the most memorable wall but the entire country was
| divided by a wall as well.
|
| My mom's family abandoned their house and factory and fled to the
| west when the Russians took their property and punished them for
| being capitalists. Since the wall wasn't up yet they left through
| Berlin, which was like a porthole to the west at the time.
| sdoering wrote:
| I grew up on the western side of the Iron curtain. Not far from
| the border. My father was born in East Germany and had fled
| with his mother, ssister and brother before the wall was up.
|
| They could only take one suitcase to make it look like they
| were visiting western Germany only. So he and his family came
| to the west.
|
| His life went in a way so that he got a job near the border as
| it was back then in north eastern Bavaria.
|
| Not far from where I grew up there was another village divided
| by a wall: Little Berlin [1]
|
| It was interesting as a child to grow up near a divided village
| and country. And seeing the border fall.
|
| I still remember my dad, tears streaming down his face while
| watching people standing on the Berlin Wall when it fell. I
| remember him welcoming the trains from the West German Embassy
| with the GDR people shortly before that. [2]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6dlareuth?wprov=sfla1
|
| [2]:
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%BCchtlingsz%C3%BCge_aus_...
| (German only)
| bosie wrote:
| if the wall wasn't up by then, why did they have to go through
| berlin?
| zwieback wrote:
| It was a shorter path, they would have had to travel much
| farther to get to West Germany than to West Berlin. At the
| time the commuter trains in Berlin were still going back and
| forth between the sectors and too busy to be checked
| thoroughly.
| nibix wrote:
| The border between West and East Germany was already heavily
| fortified in 1952. So, during the nine years until 1961, West
| Berlin was indeed a kind of porthole to the west.
|
| The reasons why the East German government did not close the
| border within Berlin are complex. For example the Sowjets
| first had the goal to make Berlin an independent but unified
| city. But there were also economical and logistical issues:
| The border would cut important railway transport routes for
| East Berlin, for which a replacement was only completed in
| 1961.
| FabHK wrote:
| Some Berlin Wall trivia:
|
| * The wall was not between East and West Berlin, but between West
| Berlin and the GDR, entirely enclosing West Berlin, naturally.
| (45 km bordered East Berlin, 113 km Potsdam, the state around
| Berlin.)
|
| * Just two months before the wall was built, at a press
| conference, Walter Ulbricht, then head of the GDR, said that
| nobody had the intention of building a wall. "Niemand hat die
| Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten."
|
| * It wasn't just a wall, but an entire corridor 50m to several
| hundred metres wide (on the "Eastern" side), consisting of a
| smaller wall ("Hinterlandmauer"), sometimes corridors for K-9s
| (German shepherds, naturally), anti-tank obstacles ("Czech
| hedgehog"), observation towers (302 by the time the wall came
| down), control strips "Kontrollstreifen" of freshly harrowed sand
| so trespassers would leave tracks, then "the wall", then a few
| more metres GDR, then the actual legal border. (However, no
| "Selbstschussanlagen SM-70", shotguns rigged to fire
| automatically - those were only deployed at the border to West
| Germany.)
|
| * There were 2300 border troops deployed at any time, mostly in
| pairs to control each other, but rotating, so that they couldn't
| form a bond. They were under an order to shoot trespassers, the
| infamous "Schiessbefehl".
|
| * Some 100 to 200+ people died trying to cross the wall. It is
| surprisingly hard to put an exact number on it.
|
| * There were some "enclaves" (exclaves?) like the Lenne-Dreieck
| (Lenne-triangle): on the "western" side of the wall, but
| officially belonging to the East, so effectively a no-man's land.
|
| * One of the iconic events precipitating the fall was in Sept
| 1989. Many (thousands) of East Germans had traveled to Prague,
| Czechoslovakia (not part of the USSR, but of the Eastern Bloc),
| and climbed over the fence of the West German embassy there,
| camping on the grounds. On 30 Sept, the foreign minister of West
| Germany (after long negotiations with USSR foreign minister
| Shevardnadse), Hans-Dietrich Genscher, appeared on the balcony to
| tell those refugees that they could go on to West Germany. The
| rest of the speech was basically drowned out by cheering as soon
| as the crowd heard "Ausreise". See here from about 1:20.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov9IHjX8UF4
|
| * Then, on 9 Nov 1989, the wall fell, and it was a surprisingly
| silly culmination of the revolution. The East German authorities
| knew that they couldn't carry on, and were planning to gradually
| open the borders from December onwards (given that people could
| flee via Czechoslovakia anyway). They started working on
| legislation, and there was lots of discussions going back and
| forth (would people that left be allowed to return, etc.) On Nov
| 9, they sent the first secretary of the party (Sozialistische
| Einheitspartei Deutschlands) in East Berlin, Gunter Schabowski,
| on a press conference to talk about these plans, but he hadn't
| attended the deliberations and was basically reading from some
| notes he had been handed. An Italian reporter asked about it the
| border, and Schabowski announced these plans for liberalisation,
| live on TV. He was then asked when these would go into effect,
| and he shuffled around in those papers and said "as far as I
| know, that's applicable now, immediately". People stormed the
| border ("first gradually, then suddenly"), and the rest was
| history. See around 0:40 here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn4VDwaV-oo
| rkachowski wrote:
| I live in Berlin, I tried to cycle home yesterday past Bernauer
| Strasse (pictured) but the police had completely blocked off the
| whole region with barricades and around 20 police wagons.
|
| I'm pretty sure the irony of commemorating the Berlin wall and
| its fall via people with guns stopping the public from crossing
| was lost on them.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Maybe that was the point? To temporarily re-divide the city as
| part of the ceremony?
|
| If not intentional now, I can see that kind of thing happening
| in the future.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Can you say what was the reason that they were there? A
| protest?
| [deleted]
| nibix wrote:
| The official commemoration ceremony with all German top
| politicians took place at Bernauer Strasse. That was probably
| the reason why the street was blocked by police.
|
| https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/gedenken-an-mauerbau-
| steinmei...
| rkachowski wrote:
| Thanks for the link, I couldn't find anything on Berliner
| Zeitung and cynically assumed it was something to do with
| Elon Musk being in town.
| nbadg wrote:
| Out of curiosity, when? I walked down Bernauer Strasse with my
| dog (from the Hundeplatz at Mauerpark to Nordbahnhof; I live
| relatively close-by) and didn't see anything unusual. I don't
| keep track of time well on a Friday at the dog park, but I'd
| guess that would have been around 20:00, give or take.
| rkachowski wrote:
| 9:30
| sarabande wrote:
| There is/was a (right-wing) NPD political assembly that is
| being protested by the Green Party, supposedly in the area of
| the wall. I'm guessing this is the reason for the hordes of
| police.
|
| https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/corona-demo-rechtsext...
| tpmx wrote:
| That story is from last year. (August 25, 2020)
|
| > I'm guessing this is the reason for the hordes of police.
|
| Somehow I doubt it.
| sdoering wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this story. Made me smile. Nice ironic
| touch.
| tpmx wrote:
| ~15 years ago I randomly wandered into an antifa vs police
| standoff in Berlin, just as it was forming. Surreal experience.
| Everyone knew where they were supposed to be, except for me. It
| felt like they had done it so many times before.
|
| I got out of there just in time. It's the only time I've seen
| large scale street violence. I don't think it belongs in a
| civilized society.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > It's the only time I've seen large scale street violence. I
| don't think it belongs in a civilized society.
|
| "...more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a
| negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive
| peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says
| "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree
| with your methods of direct action;" [1] - Martin Luther
| King, Jr.
|
| I wasn't there on the street with you 15 years ago. I don't
| know what the protestors were protesting (though "antifa",
| depending on how you use the term may suggest they were
| protesting a fascist/neo-nazi group).
|
| But i include this quote only to say that you have to be
| careful to consider whether society is as civilized as those
| in power believe it is, and whether it can always be improved
| through other "civilized" manners.
|
| [1] http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/060.html
| leereeves wrote:
| That quote could be [mis]used to defend any movement, but I
| don't recall MLK leading people in helmets, carrying
| shields, to violently confront police, without even making
| a clear statement of what they want.
|
| MLK was very clear about what he meant by "justice", never
| tried to hide his identity, and didn't respond with
| violence.
|
| "Antifa", on the other hand, aren't even honest about what
| they want. They call themselves anti-fascist, but they are
| anarchists, who dishonestly label any authority "fascist".
| adventured wrote:
| Anarchists of that sort are only such until they acquire
| structural power, then they immediately become the new,
| organized, violently oppressive authoritarian power. It's
| why Antifa so resembles the fascism they claim to oppose.
| That exact switch happened repeatedly across the 20th
| century. An organized anarchist movement is something
| close to an oxymoron, a facade at best, for people
| lusting for the power to implement their own vision of
| how things should be (while using that particular appeal
| to lure followers). The people that were responsible for
| installing Lenin's famines and ultimately Stalin, would
| of course tell you they also meant well (akin to someone
| claiming they mean you no harm while they break your
| skull).
| ostenning wrote:
| Nothing has changed, I witnessed a fairly violent antifa
| against police just recently
| samizdis wrote:
| DW anniversary special:
|
| _60 years ago, the Berlin Wall went up, dividing the city -- and
| more_
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/60-years-ago-the-berlin-wall-went-up-d...
|
| _The East German secret police and the Berlin Wall_
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/the-east-german-secret-police-and-the-...
|
| _Underground pop art thrived in East Germany_
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/underground-pop-art-thrived-in-east-ge...
| keewee7 wrote:
| The East German authorities called the wall "Anti-Fascist
| Protection Border".
|
| >The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population
| from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the
| people" from building a socialist state in East Germany.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| What's your point though? That building walls is a useless
| endeavour or that anti-fascism is evil becay an anti-democratic
| state abused the term for propaganda reasons?
|
| If it's the latter, I hope you'll never look into the historic
| use of terms such as democracy, freedom/liberty or "free
| elections".
| argvargc wrote:
| Not the OP but I think you've made their point quite well.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| The point of the wall was to prevent the population of the
| GDR from running away from socialism; Between 1959-1960 they
| collectivized agriculture, this means that all the
| independent farmers were forced to join big state owned
| farms; the system did not work properly and resulted in
| shortages. All this resulted in the flight of more than a
| million citizens from the GDR to the west between 1959 and
| 1961; about two and a half million fled between 1949 and
| 1961; The east german rulers stopped this flight by errecting
| a hightly unpopular wall; East Berlin before the wall was a
| very open city - for example you could live in the east and
| work in the western part of the city. Now they had to justify
| the whole project with ideology constructs - and the ultimate
| trick was to apply Goodwin's law, and that was done before
| the invention of the internet.
| mostertoaster wrote:
| What has been will be again, what has been done will be done
| again; there is nothing new under the sun.
| xx511134bz wrote:
| Odd/amusing point, the Stasi referred to the wall as the
| "antifascist defense border". Although these days, I'm a bit torn
| on the term as I see rent prices jacked up across the world by
| whomever can borrow money at the lowest rate.
|
| The Stasi and the Berlin Wall | DW Documentary
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haxkWC6MgcQ
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Highest recommendation for Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's
| film _The Lives of Others_ (2006) ;)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I suspect that real estate prices are dragged up by fear of
| inflation. People in my country buy whatever has a roof,
| because they do not want their savings to go to waste.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's all about the cheap money.
|
| I just refinanced my house for a rate that is effectively
| negative in real terms right now.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| We had even slightly lower interest rate on mortgages in
| 2017 and the market was nowhere as hot as today.
|
| I am sort-of familiar with real estate market in Prague and
| Ostrava, two very different cities.
|
| Apartments in Ostrava were hard to sell even with low
| interest rates, because the city lost 10 per cent of its
| population - a typical rust belt phenomenon. Even just two
| years ago, an apartment put on market in Ostrava could be
| there for half a year before attracting a serious buyer.
|
| They are now hot like hell and more than twice as much
| expensive.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Agreed. Some people/institutions have access to more money
| than can be productively used so they bid up anything that
| has the potential to make money, be it startups, Bitcoin or
| housing.
| adsche wrote:
| Is the real estate market (esp. for renting out) actually
| dominated by private investors and their savings? Here in
| German cities, it _feels_ like it 's dominated by faceless
| investors and corporations but I have no data to back that
| up.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In March-May 2021, I was looking for an apartment or
| smaller house in my city of birth, Ostrava. The market was
| crazy, but the prospective buyers looked like regular
| people. Sometimes 15-20 of us met in a single location and
| had to be shepherded through the dwelling in groups.
| f6v wrote:
| 99.99% for-rent apartments I've seen in Western Europe were
| owned by some huge company. That's a stark contrast to
| Eastern Europe where you're much more likely to rent a
| privately owned property.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| How many of those are actually privately owned but are
| only _managed_ by the big bad corporation? It is often
| very hard to tell the difference.
| buran77 wrote:
| This may be because of local laws or city council rules.
| In many cities the developer of a complex today is forced
| by law to have a certain percentage of the development
| dedicated for rental (Munich I think may be the leader
| here with a proposed 80% for rental). The only way to
| achieve this is to have the apartments owned by the
| developer or handed over to another management company
| (or investor) for rental only.
|
| It's also why you sometimes see a development with a
| several rows of houses meant for sale flanked by one or
| more apartment buildings with a far smaller footprint but
| enough floors to equal roughly the same usable area in
| order to get the project approved.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| actually in Germany 60% of the appartments are owned by
| private individuals 10% state/local governments, 10%
| coops (Genossenschaft), and the reminder corporations.
| (While statistics differ a bit depending on where you
| draw the line between some private owner and a
| corporation for auch a statistic)
| https://www.savills.de/insight-and-opinion/savills-
| news/2756... is one survey with some numbers
| buran77 wrote:
| The laws I mentioned are relatively new [0]. So for now
| it's hard to compete in numbers with a century of already
| built apartments. And eventually all "for rent" units do
| go on the market for sale.
|
| But it's also easy to see why for someone looking for
| rent in many big cities today it looks like most
| apartments are owned by big management companies. New
| developments in "hot" cities with high demand and such
| laws _are_ owned by a management company because that 's
| the only way it works. You'd see entire buildings owned
| by the developer. It will take decades for those new
| apartments to go into private ownership.
|
| [0] https://www.thelocal.de/20210708/explained-munichs-
| radical-n...
| [deleted]
| pydry wrote:
| IIRC west germany did end up welcoming some nazis back into
| government positions so from their standpoint it probably
| seemed fairly reasonable. There were still Nazis everywhere in
| postwar berlin.
| sdoering wrote:
| They did. Same with the US inviting Third Reich scientists.
| Or BND, CIA, MI5 and others inviting HVA (Stasi foreign spy
| agency) people into their ranks.
|
| What, except maybe that states are immoral and opportunistic,
| does these things tell us?
|
| I am not sure. Maybe I am missing net positive things as
| outcomes from these behaviors. But to me neither example is
| good.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Using those scientists to made the bomb to end the war was
| one positive outcome.
| heraclius wrote:
| In that were the real concern, the DDR would have restricted
| travel from the West to the East by residents of the West,
| but not travel by its own residents to the West and return
| journeys--yet it prohibited the latter.
|
| Moreover the DDR cannot seriously have had such concerns,
| since it too e.g. employed former Nazi officers in its army.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| East Germany did that too in the early years for building up
| their "inofficial army" (called "Kasernierte Volkspolizei")
| before the "official" NVA (National People's Army) was
| founded in 1956. After that they mostly got rid of old Nazis
| in the army though, at least the high-ranking ones. In
| general, the more specialist and "valuable" an old Nazi was,
| the more it was likely that his history was quickly
| forgotten, also in the East.
| aerosmile wrote:
| The Russians' usage of the term antifascist certainly didn't
| age well, but it's worth noting that "fascists" is how all
| people in the world referred to certain Germans and Italians
| for a period of 25 years all up until 1945 (and the affected
| folks didn't mind that - in fact, the term was invented in
| Italy in 1915 and then adopted by Mussolini in 1918 and by
| Hitler in 1923 [0]). So for Russians to refer to Germans who
| didn't join them as fascists is just a continuation of how the
| term had been used for a long time.
|
| By 1961, it was definitely unfair to continue using the term in
| its original meaning, and at this point it was certainly the
| Russian government pushing their agenda a lot more strongly
| than the general population would have on its own. But it's not
| like everyone was strictly opposed to it either - the horrors
| of the war had created in Eastern Europe such deep resentment
| towards Germany that it would take a lot more than 16 years to
| get over that. In fact, my grandpa lived until the 90s and
| still called every German a fascist.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
| fsckboy wrote:
| > the term antifascist certainly didn't age well
|
| antifa?
|
| the political left has never stopped using the term fascist
| as a pejorative, it's thrown around quite liberally even
| today
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Where is the line at to be drawn between nationalism and
| fascist ultra nationalism? The rise in nationalism in many
| countries is one thing, but as that nationalism becomes
| stronger it is too easy to see it as drifting into fascist
| territory.
| [deleted]
| f6v wrote:
| Sometimes I get lost in public discussions these days.
| Everyone is "fascist", "far-right", and "leftist" at the
| same time.
| aerosmile wrote:
| Far-left and far-right ideologies have more in common
| than many people realize (including the people within
| those factions). They are both based on the principle on
| low tolerance, and as such they are well-aligned on the
| idea of strict enforcement of their ideologies.
|
| There are some hilarious misconceptions that members of
| those factions have about their own ideologies. Far-left
| is against the police brutality, but there is a 100 year
| history of perfect correlation between leftist regimes
| and policy brutality.
|
| Far-right is against government interventions in all
| economic matters, but that also has never materialized
| anywhere else.
|
| The bottom line is that anything that's far-something
| requires suppression of the society's natural tendency to
| return to the center.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The Wilson and Attlee governments in the UK would be very
| surprised to hear there's a "100 year history of perfect
| correlation".
|
| They were certainly leftist. Many would consider them far
| leftist today. (Of course they weren't, but that doesn't
| mean the label wouldn't be applied.)
|
| Neither was legendary for police brutality. That came
| later, with Thatcher's response to the Miner's Strike and
| the poll tax riots - among others.
| blix wrote:
| I have a hard time considering a government that ruled
| over and fought bitterly to protect a global capitalist
| empire as truly 'leftist,' unlike the UK's geopolitical
| enemies of the time.
|
| It is also likely that subjects of certain British
| colonies would have a substantially different opinion on
| police violence.
| aerosmile wrote:
| My bad, I meant to say far-left instead of leftist.
| Hopefully that sentiment is evident throughout the rest
| of my comment.
| cronix wrote:
| Far-left and far-right intersect at totalitarianism.
| user-the-name wrote:
| That sounds entirely like a problem with you not making
| any effort to understand what is discussed rather than
| anyone else's problem.
| f6v wrote:
| Or maybe it's people who didn't do well in school don't
| know what a fascist regime looks like.
| aerosmile wrote:
| I said specifically "the Russians' usage of the term..."
| codeulike wrote:
| The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing
| factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like
| sci-fi now.
|
| Also, the idea that a physical barrier could affect the spread of
| information.
|
| Its interesting how much of 20th century history centers on
| Berlin.
|
| There's a wall museum in Berlin, well worth visiting.
|
| Edit: thanks for the reminders about contemporary split cities,
| sobering to think about those
| pomian wrote:
| Mexico USA border seems to a pretty strong example of a
| contemporary wall. Imagine what would happen if it was
| completely removed?
| gadders wrote:
| The Berlin Wall was to stop people escaping. The US border
| Wall is to stop people coming in.
| nautilius wrote:
| You mean all 700 miles of it along 2000 miles of border? I
| would guess nothing at all would change. No comparison to the
| German wall with minefields, self shooting devices, etc.
| kunagi7 wrote:
| > The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing
| factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like
| sci-fi now.
|
| Say welcome to the "Peace lines" or "Peace walls" [0] in
| Belfast and other cities in North Ireland. There's also
| Jerusalem, Nicosia and more places with walls around certain
| areas.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines
| mbg721 wrote:
| Having the subway run under the other side's territory and just
| skip stations is the part that really feels sci-fi/cyberpunk to
| me.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "sounds like sci-fi now"
|
| Sci-fi is usually about _future_. With 8 billion people in the
| world and growing, I can definitely see some other places
| divided by walls so that hostile factions do not mix.
|
| There are "peace lines" in contemporary Belfast and Derry still
| in existence.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines
| marc__1 wrote:
| _> the idea of a city split into two_
|
| We see this more often than not. The modern version just omit
| the walls
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-electio...
|
| _> physical barrier could affect the spread of information_
| Don 't you think that there is a component of physical barrier
| in today's internet? while this may sound odd for the
| Americans, this is very typical in many parts of the world
| (East Europe, Asia and parts of Africa and Latin America)
| perihelions wrote:
| _" The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing
| factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like
| sci-fi now."_
|
| Current reality in Nicosia (capital of Cyprus, a EU nation).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Buffer_Zone_in_...
|
| > _" The Turkish army has built a barrier on the zone's
| northern side, consisting mainly of barbed-wire fencing,
| concrete wall segments, watchtowers, anti-tank ditches, and
| minefields. The zone cuts through the centre of Nicosia,
| separating the city into southern and northern sections. In
| total, it spans an area of 346 square kilometres (134 sq mi),
| varying in width from less than 20 metres (66 ft) to more than
| 7 kilometres (4.3 mi).[2][3][4] Because of this, after the fall
| of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Nicosia remains the last divided
| capital in Europe.[5][6]"_
| mattr47 wrote:
| Big difference between Berlin and Nicosia/Lefkosa. I lived
| for 2 years (2010-2012) in the North as a westerner and while
| the division certainly affects the Island, it is nothing like
| Berlin in the Cold War.
|
| Healing and forgiveness, on both sides, must occur before
| reunification.
| SerLava wrote:
| >Healing and forgiveness, on both sides, must occur before
| reunification.
|
| I have an instinctive reaction to that type of language now
| - it makes me wonder if one side has dramatically more
| fault than the other
| Landefeld_1 wrote:
| 'Fallacy' ? Take two opposing Counterparts, teached by
| history. 'Farmers and the church were the first, who
| thought something like welfare, the farmer were
| "addicted" to the help of others to bring in the harvest,
| often village people to construct and
| harvest...historical the church seemed to be addicted to
| grace -which the people had to obey [turns-in-a-circle]
| to fulfill the will of "god" (abstract: a 3rd person). So
| it today those two (farmers and the church) seem to be
| the first who drag money out of it (the social).'
|
| A few post above someone wrote something that "'fascist'
| refer to Germans who didn't join communism"
|
| And that one may say, extremists are 'well-aligned on the
| idea of strict enforcement of their ideologies'
| (Quoting).
|
| So take a look at history
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian_era
|
| And add that Wilhelm II (Germany) was an grandchild of
| the british Queen Victoria. And, that socialdemocracy as
| domestic policy was concerned the biggest threat of his
| time (under his politics)
|
| Bismarck (his predecessor) for example whereas is
| considered as the father of the 'modern' welfare state.
|
| Maybe a try to show how easy it was to distract me, with
| a simple 'governments pushing their agenda a lot more
| strongly than the general population would have on its
| own'. (-;
| usr1106 wrote:
| Korea. While it's not in the middle of the capital, it's not
| that far. And the border is much tighter than the Berlin wall
| has ever been.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| I don't know about that, trying to cross the border had/has
| a high chance of being shot to death, both in the GDR and
| (AFAIK) in North Korea. East Germany even had automated the
| whole killing part:
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstschussanlage
|
| (I haven't found the matching article on the English
| Wikipedia, sorry)
| fsckboy wrote:
| matching article in English
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-gun
|
| (on most wiki pages you can find matching articles in
| other languages near the bottom of the column of links
| under the wikipedia logo on the far left of the desktop
| version)
| newacct583 wrote:
| > The idea of a city split into two by ideologically opposing
| factions, and the split being marked by a big wall, sounds like
| sci-fi now.
|
| Jerusalem says hi.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| > Also, the idea that a physical barrier could affect the
| spread of information.
|
| It didn't, radio waves didn't stop at the wall ;)
|
| My dad told stories of communist youths tearing down people's
| "west antennas" and there were also attempts to jam western TV
| and radio stations, but this was in the early 60's or so. Later
| it was more or less tolerated (to watch western TV and listen
| to western radio), even though officially a taboo.
| est31 wrote:
| Yeah they could send to most of the east except for a few
| regions that got dubbed "valley of the clueless".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tal_der_Ahnungslosen
| tylersmith wrote:
| Slightly off topic but the German band Rammstein, whose
| members prodominately grew up in East Berlin, have a great
| song called "Radio" about how the information leakage from
| the west to the east over radio helped encourage the cultural
| changes required to unify Germany. It's interesting to me to
| hear from the source how valuable it was/is.
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